Entrepreneurship program to be continued — CM
KOTA KINABALU: As of January this year, there were 102 incubatees under Sabah Development Corridor (SDC) entrepreneurship development programme with total project cost of RM44.4 million.
Chief Minister Tan Sri Musa Aman said the programme had continued to receive overwhelming response and he had requested the programme to be continued for another three years.
Meanwhile, he said the total investment from bumiputera small and medium enterprises (SMEs) under the Teraju@SDC programmes had reached RM1.5 billion.
Musa said that in his speech, which was delivered by Deputy Chief Minister Tan Sri Joseph Pairin Kitingan, who represented him in chairing the 26th members of authority meeting of the Sabah Economic Development and Investment Authority (Sedia) here yesterday.
Following the meeting, Pairin presented the fourth series of the Small and Medium Industry (SMI) Development and Sabah Bumiputera Start-up Fund to beneficiaries.
A total of 20 participants of the incubator programme obtained the funding that amounted to RM476,678.38 while a recipient under the accelerator programme received RM45,900.
On another note, Musa said RM2.32 billion was channeled by the Federal Government under the Ninth, 10th and 11th Malaysia Plans to Sedia for SDC projects.
“A total of RM2.16 billion or 92 per cent of the allocation has been disbursed by Sedia and a sum of RM165 billion in cumulative committed investments has been recorded since the launch of SDC up until January 31, of which RM66 billion has been realized.”
He also said that Sabah was named by the Chinese travel booking site Ctrip as one of the top 10 destinations for the estimated 6.5 million Chinese travellers who ventured abroad in February during the Chinese New Year festive season.
To further enhance the tourism industry, he said the government was developing the Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions (MICE) sector, with the Sabah International Convention Centre (SICC) expected to be completed this year.
“The SICC can accommodate 5,000 people and offers up to 10,000 job opportunities.
“Meanwhile, an Air Freight and Aviation Masterplan study is currently being carried out to take advantage of the global trend that is seeing an increase in the demand for air freight and capacity.”
At the same time, Musa said additional new projects had been included under SDC for the 11MP, which included the development of the Nabawan Cattle Industry, study on Basic Infrastructure Needs for a Rural Education Hub, masterplan study on the Expansion and Reach of the Sabah Agro-Industrial Precinct.
Earlier, he said the SDC Blueprint was now over midway of its 18-year implementation period with a scheduled end in 2025.
“Sedia is now ready to undertake a thorough evaluation of SDC performance, targets, roles and priorities, to ensure this development corridor is on track towards achieving its objectives in line with the Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) and aspirations of the National Transformation 2050 (TN50).”
He said the review of the SDC Blueprint which would result in the SDC Blueprint version 2.0 publication would factor in feedback provided by various stakeholders during the recent national conference on economic corridors and carnival events.
“Sedia will ensure that the revised blueprint takes into consideration global economic prospects, current state and federal government development plans, as well as the socio-economic needs of the people who are key stakeholders to the SDC initiative.”
Also present at the event were Chief Secretary to the Government, Tan Sri Dr Ali Hamsa and Sedia chief executive Datuk Dr Mohd Yaakub Haji Johari.